bo knows how to select double play cards

the recent package from bo featured a large number of double play cards, many of which were new to me.  here are some that i hadn't seen before

1993 score select jay bell

1993 score select mariano duncan

which happens to feature the aforementioned jay bell

1993 score select scott fletcher

whom i either forgot or did not know played for the brewers.

1993 score select mike gallego

1993 score select rene gonzales

1993 score select manny lee

now, i am assuming that he is turning two here, but there's always a chance that he's jumping just for the heck of it.

1993 score select robby thompson

looks like an expo sliding in. i miss the expos.

1993 score select john valentin

1993 score select lou whitaker

sweet lou showed up a couple of other times in the package:

1993 topps stadium club

and 1995 upper deck collector's choice

hello, thrill.

the tigers were pretty well represented in the turning two category in that set with alan trammell

(again, an assumption about turning two, but why else would the shortstop be coming across the bag like that?) and choice chris gomez

here's a padre, luis lopez,

also turning two in the set, and doing so on tatooine.  the back of lopez's card also features a photo from the desert planet

as does the last card of this post, 1996 upper deck chris gomez

and the cosmic ballet goes on.

thanks again for the cards, bo. i will be showing more in the near future, so stay tuned...

a quick trip to tatooine

with the trade of juan uribe to the braves, i would expect alex guerrero to eventually settle in at third base. at least until hector olivera is ready.  however, most of guerrero's playing time of late has been in the outfield, since both yasiel puig and carl crawford are injured.

last year, topps included guerrero in many of its sets, and listed him as a second baseman.  that made sense then, but he has yet to play at second in the major leagues.  here are three of those cards, with guerrero turning two to boot.

2014 topps walmart blue

2014 topps chrome purple refractor

and 2014 topps mini pink parallel

notice that the cards show guerrero throwing to first without a lick of grass in sight.  that's what makes a tatooine card a tatooine card.

here are some others from my mini collection

1994 donruss bobby bonilla

1995 upper deck luis lopez electric diamond parallel

1996 upper deck brady anderson vj lovero showcase insert

2000 topps stadium club bobby abreu

2001 fleer tradition corey koskie

2011 topps carlos beltran

and 2012 topps emilio bonifacio

i am guessing that there is all kinds of mischief one can get into at mos eisley spaceport, so the vegas code probably stands - what happens on tatooine stays on tatooine.  unless you're luke skywalker bragging about taking out womprats to a group of rebel pilots.

one does not simply post random cards on friday

unless one lacks inspiration for a proper post, and there are still a bunch of cards sitting idly in the scanned folder.

such is life.

2002 topps tribute zach wheat

wheat actually had 476 career doubles, which was still about 300 shy of the all-time leader (tris speaker) when he retired.  speaker is still on top of the list, with wheat way down at 81st all-time (and about to be passed by torii hunter) now.

2004 topps heritage don newcombe flashback

newk won exactly 20 games in 1955 (as he had in 1951), but was 27-7 in 1956 to win the cy young and mvp awards.  he lost game 1 of the '55 world series, so i guess that's why the flashback card references the 1955 regular season.  always good to see don newcombe cards in newer releases!

1985 donruss ken landreaux

i liked '85 donruss at the time. definitely more than i liked '85 fleer (and i am a fan of the 1970 topps gray border set).  landreaux here is swinging away in dodger stadium, while delino deshields is in vero beach on his 1996 upper deck card

1996 upper deck got a little too fancy for me.  there are some nice cards in the set, but all the gold foil didn't do much for me so i bought very little of this back then.

2002 topps chrome davey lopes refractor

that's a shiny card of the former dodger second baseman who was fired by the brew crew 15 games into the 2002 season.

2002 topps chrome traded brian jordan

i don't know if the chrome traded veteran cards are short printed, but i was pretty ticked that topps did that with the regular traded set that year.

2010 upper deck jonathan broxton biography insert

broxton was indeed 6-0 after june 5, 2009 with 13 saves to his credit to boot.  after the game on august 18, 2009, broxton was 7-0 with 26 saves.  he took the loss the next day.

2010 topps cards your mom threw out 1953 topps johnny podres

this is the 'original back' version

at some point between 1953 and 1978, people stopped using the phrase "pulls a rock". i had not heard that until reading the back of this card.

2005 topps carl erskine 'dem bums' insert

oisk is trying to run away from this post as fast as he can. i don't blame him.

a pwe to please me

so, jeff at 2x3 heroes and i are playing hot potato with the pwe's these days (there's one in the mail for you today, jeff).  here are some (yes, jeff fit more than just these cards in a pwe) of the cards that i received in his last missive.

1996 upper deck hideo nomo vj lovero showcase insert

that's a rarely used viewpoint that never gets old.  plus, it qualifies as a 'tatooine' card.  more of those a bit later.

here's a 1986 o-pee-chee card of steve garvey

and a 1987 topps boardwalk and baseball card of the garv as well

those cards make up two-thirds of the pwe's garvey content.  the b/b card is from a boxed set featuring 'top run makers' and was all about each players' "runs produced average" which was just (runs scored + rbi)/games played.  real scientific sabermetric stuff back in 1987.

this is a 1995 fleer ultra pedro astacio card

which, when considered from the standpoint of the envelope's contents as a whole, was kind of out of place.

there were other dodgers, but they were from the 2000 fleer greats of the game set, and included this fantastic preacher roe card.

just a beautiful thing.

here's a less interesting card from the same set featuring gil hodges

now back to tatooine cards.  joe randa is looking for droids on his 2003 donruss card

as is morgan ensberg on his 2004 upper deck card

and jason michaels as well, on his 2007 topps card

thanks jeff - you're it!

no managerial cards in 1996 topps meant no cards of 1978 topps dodgers

once again, topps did not include managers in their flagship set in 1996, so i was once again shut out.  18 years later, here are the 1996 topps cards that should have been.

tom lasorda

the 1996 topps design is a weird one thanks to the inset 'phantom zone' photo.  the gradient shading used in the name box makes it tough to read when scanned, too.  i should have used a lighter color for the name text.  here's a real 1996 topps card of jose offerman for reference.

note that national league teams have the green shading of the inset photo/name boxes, while american league teams use red. topps would take this color scheme to a whole new level in 1997, in which there were no managerial cards either.

anyway, back to tommy - he did receive a card from someone in 1996 (other than mother's cookies, whose image i used to create the topps card up top).  upper deck gave lasorda a checklist as a managerial salute

recognizing that 1996 would be his 20th season managing the dodgers.  it also turned out to be his last. with the dodgers at 41-35 and two games up in the national league west after beating the astros on june 23, 1996, tommy had a heart attack the following day. it was an off day, of course, and tommy drove himself to the hospital.  he underwent surgery a couple of days later, and officially retired from managing in july.  we'll get to who took over in a bit.

dusty baker

baker had the giants at 68-94 for the season, bad enough to finish last in the national league west, 22 games behind the dodgers, who finished 1 game behind the first place padres.  they weren't the worst team in the league, however, as the phillies finished at 67-95.  baker survived the firing of general manager bob quinn at the season's end, and would return to the giants with better luck in 1997.

johnny oates

over in the american league west, the rangers won their first division title in 1996.  yes, they were in first place when the 1994 players' strike began, but this was the first time they actually advanced to the postseason.  oates had the team at 90-72, their second best win total in franchise history, and 4.5 games ahead of second place seattle.  unfortunately, the rangers lost in the division series to the yankees, three games to one.  oates was voted a co-manager of the year for the american league in 1996, sharing the award with joe torre whose team defeated oates' rangers in the playoffs.

there was no traded set in 1996, and even if there were, there wouldn't have been managerial cards included i am sure.  still, the man who took over for tom lasorda in 1996 deserves at least a 1996 topps card that should have been.

bill russell

the longtime dodger shortstop had been groomed for this moment - serving as bench coach to lasorda and managing in the minor leagues - and he led the team to a 49-37 record after taking over for lasorda. unfortunately, the padres played better ball during that stretch and overtook the dodgers by sweeping the season ending series between the two teams to finish one game up in the west.  this meant that the dodgers were the wild card winner, and so they got to play the braves and were swept in the playoffs for the second straight season.